[vczf]

5mg may be an order of magnitude more than needed.

I started my father [0] on ≈200ug and he was more animated and looked at photos around the house much more. Bumped him up to ≈500ug [1] the last two days, and he’s shown a nearly unbelievable improvement in lucidity and recognition.

He’s still nonverbal but babbling a lot more, and in a non-agitated way. He’ll make eye contact with us more and wiggle his eyebrows. He has not been running away from me during morning yogurt and other meals we sometimes have standing up. More responsive to music, photos, eye contact.

He actually kissed my mom today and then got teary-eyed. He hasn’t done anything like that in at least a year.

Tonight when he was tired, he wasn't unstoppably wandering. He was tired but still “there” and lucid. I was able to calmly walk him to his bedroom.

Lithium orotate might be the magic bullet. Lithium deficiency could very well be the cause of age-related neurodegeneration. It’s too early in my personal case study to draw firm conclusions, but this is looking absolutely incredible from my perspective as a caregiver. Subjectively, he seems no longer “lost” in the darkness.

If he is still stable and/or improving in a month, I will be making as much noise about this treatment as I can online and in meatspace. [2]

[0] Early onset posterior cortical atrophy and corticobasal degeneration. It presents initially as visual disturbances, hallucinations, and coordination problems rather than memory loss. Sometimes memory and speech can persist until the end.

[1] I opened up some 5mg Nutricost capsules, weighed the contents, and calculated how much of the mixture is needed for a given amount of active ingredient. Then I measure out each dose on a calibrated milligram scale. This is definitely out of reach for many people, so ideally companies can just add a small dose to multivitamins and call it a day. I’ve been taking the same dose I give my dad, and have not noticed much of anything.

[2] There are some ethical considerations in halting the disease process for those with late stage dementia. It would be inhumane to “cure” advanced AD if one has no hope of a life worth living, given one’s current capabilities and options. (For example, bed-bound in nursing homes with severe memory loss.) I’m very optimistic about lithium orotate, but I doubt it can do more than halt the neurodegeneration—which would mean rapidly hitting a low ceiling for cognitive improvements after beginning the therapy. That also means a practically life-long caregiving requirement. I didn’t want to be a caregiver for my father for the next 30+ years, but frankly I did not expect such a dramatic and immediate improvement in his condition. I expected nothing at all to happen.